Hypenvironment

April 17, 2013

I have tried to stay calm, admittedly with marginal success, since the School of Oceanography was siphoned away from a clear role in what was the UW College of Ocean and Fishery Sciences to its new home in the College of the Environment.  It has not been an easy transition for our School or for me.  Was pretty easy to understand how we fit into the old college:  Oceanography mapped to Ocean and Fishery Sciences.  Has been much harder to see the mapping of Ocean to Environment, for we now are a basic science department in a college too strongly mapped to environmental sustainability and problem solving.  With most of our funding coming from the National Science Foundation, whose mission is transformational basic science, this is a strong disconnect.  Yet I try to be a good citizen.

The past week has put me over the edge.  We have had a high-end set of portrait photographers (and Benj and Sara, you are top notch!) taking portraits of our faculty for our new “edgy” college web site.  I was cooperative, on-time, wearing my Infectious Awareables E. coli tie.  Benj was impressed that I had cleaned my glasses just before coming.  And what seems like a couple hundred shots later, there were some I liked.

To me the meaning of the word faculty is a member of the faculty.  Certainly those that vote.  These include many exceptional young talents and older even more stellar talents all of whom do a significant share of teaching, full-time with a title in the Lecturer series.  I learned from the young talent in our school that she knew nothing about this photo happening.  I sent an e-mail to the assistant in the college office coordinating, and heard back within a hour or so from our Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Diversity explaining that 1) this was an expensive process and so 2) the project is “limited to those faculty who have grad faculty status with endorsement to chair “, so that 3) “there are a range of faces not represented in this group who are strong forces in the college”.

Yet the very reason given to me by her is that the project is “an attempt to sum up the scholarly diversity of the college with an eye towards prospective students, secondarily…”  So exactly how is it that the full-time, voting faculty members who actually teach a critical portion of our curriculum are ignored?  What should I think about my role if I am one of these faculty members?  What should I think if I am a student taking one of those courses?  What should I think if I am a parent of this student?  What should I think or my parents think as I consider our college as a prospective student?

Google thinks my word is new…we are the College of Hypenvironment.

2 Comments | Environmental Sciences, Me, Ocean Science, University of Washington | Permalink
Posted by russmcduff

Legacy of Integrity?

January 14, 2012

With the change of leadership at UW, I have been imagining a new leader and style of leadership that reverses the downward spiral of the past several years.  Perhaps the clearest, but not only, sign that the trend is not good is a recent letter to all hands dated January 3, 2012.

Our new President, Michael Young, set a piece of context that was striking:

Persons entrusted with academic, administrative, and athletic responsibilities at institutions of higher education have been found to have actively betrayed that trust — or to have stood by passively allowing the destructive behavior to continue.

Then he continued:

In contrast, it is clear to me that the University of Washington’s century and a half of success has been built on a strong foundation of integrity. When problems have been discovered, they have been dealt with promptly and appropriately, as one would hope. Overall, the UW has nurtured a culture of responsible conduct, which has sustained our perennial success in attracting scholars and administrators who share a visceral inclination to act honorably.

And began his conclusion by exhorting:

Having inherited such values, one of our duties is to periodically renew our commitment to maintain these high expectations of ourselves and of one another.

—–

Excuse me, but what part of UW legacy does he imagine demonstrates anything resembling values that are any better than those elsewhere including the cheap shot he takes obliquely at Penn State and for that matter many other top private or publics? A litany of UW wrongs, not dealt with promptly and appropriately, come to mind.  In athletics, just read Scoreboard Baby and then explain both actions taken then and thereafter in the ensuing women’s softball drug scandal and the  men’s basketball date rapes.  In the medical school, the billing scandal and the action that brought the serious sanctions: coverup.  At the heart of the university, total disrespect for shared governance exemplified by a multi-million dollar class action settlement for faculty and exacerbated by unilateral retreat from a salary policy supposedly designed for good times and bad.  Compounded by a narcissistic, sociopathic Provost, left to her own devices, now gone but leaving a wake of dysfunction and lack of trust.  Integrity requires accountability.

David Brewster writes thoughtfully in Crosscut about the challenges that President Young faces, and I agree with much of what he says.  But the last sentence (which I am partially taking out of context) speaks to the concerns expressed here:

The risk is that time is running out, morale is sinking at the university, and Young loses the momentum of his honeymoon year.

It is true for the political arena of which Brewster writes and it is equally true in restoring integrity.  Take off the blinders.

2 Comments | University of Washington | Permalink
Posted by russmcduff